NPA decision clears way to void Speaker’s legal debt

Drewan Baird. Oudtshoorn. 15 July 2014. 17h55. With feux de joie ringing around Oudtshoorn at the NPA’s decision not to prosecute Nic Barrow, Pierre Nel, and Ben van Wyk for “settling” Nel’s legal debt, the table is laid to void the Speaker’s legal debt incurred when he lost his Constitutional Court bid to have the suspension of the voting rights of Nel and Van Wyk confirmed.

Barrow, Nel and van Wyk should be particularly pleased at the Speaker’s let-off.

Barrow is known to have an affinity for Speaker Stoffels, as he hosted Stoffels and NPP President Badih Chaaban at the Queens on July 21, 2011, on the eve of a council meeting the follow day where Chaaban was to support the DA in a bid to govern Oudtshoorn. The plan folded when violent protests forced the then municipal manager, The Reverend Noël Pietersen, to abandon proceedings.

So. Barrow, Nel, and Van Wyk did no wrong, ruled the Western Cape DPP, in fixing to settle Nel’s legal debt. Therefore, it follows, that Mayor Gordon April, and Speaker John Stoffels, may sign a document resembling a Constitutional Court Order to void Stoffels’s legal debt. Not so!?

I am reduced to stitches by the mental image of Barrow and a few selected DA diehards learning that Stoffels had been cleared of all legal debt.

Let’s be clear, me hearties: The only reason the DA did not write off Nel’s legal debt, as they had connived to have done, is because the poor sods were not in administrative, or other, control to do so following the decision to void the debt.

Now that is principle for you!

The DA Leader, Helen Zille spoke to this “settlement” in an email of July 2, 2013, at 17h15:

Please be assured that I am looking into this matter, which I regard in a very serious light. I will get back to you with a formal response as soon as I am able to do so. Let me be quite clear: the DA would NOT allow, let alone condone, a private legal bill being passed on unlawfully to the ratepayers of Oudtshoorn.

So obvious was the settlement shenanigan that Mr Justice André le Grange referred to the danger of another such fast one in hearing The Speaker v. Van Wyk and others on September 10 last year.

At some point Le Grange exclaimed: “But these are serious allegations!”

Adv Johan Heunis, for The Speaker: “Pardon, My Lord?”

Le Grange: “These are serious allegations!”

Heunis: “And it becomes more serious still My Lord!”

Council for the DA David Borgström told the court on that day that if the new DA government should confirm the Nel settlement, the decision should be reviewed – and that he, Borgström, will be baying too for such revision.

Borgström acknowledged that the Nel settlement was suspect and that “Mr van Wyk’s political career might be much shorter than he anticipates”.

Strange then, that there now appears to be consensus among DA supporters that no wrong was done, or intended!

We seem to live in times where things are only wrong if the wrong person does them. Simple maths tells us that (three) + (three) = ( six ), regardless of whether we are adding eggs or balls or ostriches – we end up with six. So if the DA last year made the following sum: (we – DA -are in power) + (one of us – Nel – owes money for legal fees) = (debt settled in full) and the moderator who marked the sum, being the NPA agrees that the sum is correct, then it follows that exactly the same calculation can now be done. (we – ANC coalition – are in power) + (one of us – Stoffels – owes money for legal fees) = (debt settled in full) This is Grade one arithmetic. Now the DA’s main argument is that the settlement was never made – but I smell a strong whiff of intent here. So I can plan a murder or a heist but as long as I don’t execute it no harm is done? I am not championing the cause of those in power but let’s compare eggs to eggs and bread to bread. The DA howls because the ANC coalition runs to the courts to stay in power, and guess what the DA does in Bitou when the ANC wants to oust them – jip – quite correct – they run to the court. 3 + 3 = 6 you can’t change the formula just because it doesnt suit you.